RAPID CITY, S.D. (May 7, 2013) – A fixture on the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology campus for 28 years, M.R. Hansen, Ph.D., a soon-to-be-retired professor of civil and environmental engineering, teaches as naturally as he breathes.
Walking into his office, knowledge has a physical presence: papers scattered across his desk, forming snow-like drifts against bookshelves as pieces of concrete peek out from between stacks.
Hansen has dedicated his career to knowledge. But his life, that belongs to his students.
After taxes, Hansen’s sick leave paid out to the tune of $20,000, a sum he donated in its entirety to start an endowment for the Mines student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. And he has plans to raise at least $20,000 more. He’s already matched dollar for dollar $17,000 with the goal of launching the fund June 21 – the day he officially retires.
“We don’t get any money at all from the state tax payers. All of it comes from student money or fundraising, with a little bit from student fees. Every year, the ASCE student chapter needs $20,000 just to operate, for the concrete canoe and steel bridge competition, etc.,” Hansen explains.
Endowments allow the principal to be invested with the earnings funding any needs, thus enabling the fund to continue in perpetuity. Half of those annual earnings will go to ASCE and the other half to the department to help with operating costs.
Before coming to the School of Mines, Hansen worked nine years as an engineer and then took a job at a smaller engineering college. Over the next six years, “I realized or decided that teaching was the best job in the world.”
His tenure at Mines has proven that epiphany true. “And it [teaching] sure has worked out that way. It’s much more challenging than regular engineering. Working with people, that’s a much harder material than working with concrete or steel. You can never do it perfectly.”
Hansen comes awfully close. Any conversation is a teachable moment. Two minutes in and the converser is the lucky recipient of a slab of concrete – and the barrage of questions that follow, about its components, density, feel, and weight. The list is endless.
His specialty is concrete, and his love for the material is evident.
Specifically: pervious, a special type of concrete with a high porosity. It’s used for flatwork applications, such as parking lots, because it allows water from precipitation and other sources to pass directly through, reducing the runoff from a site.
Hansen did the first pervious concrete installation in 2008 at the local S.D. National Guard Camp, a cooperative effort with area residents and volunteers. He also helped with an older Rapid City landmark: the concrete fish at Founder’s Park. And a more recent one: the fabrication of Storybook Island’s new Willy the Whale.
His love knows no boundaries. Through an umbrella agreement between the School of Mines and the Mongolian University of Science and Technology, Hansen’s been taking sabbaticals and teaching processes for making quality concrete for 12 years.
He’s even started an annual concrete conference, now in its 11th year, and a professional organization that writes and provides information about building codes for concrete. Students spend two semesters learning the weighty tome, which he sees as one of the most instrumental parts of the legacy he leaves. “Before this code, there was only the Russian code or no code,” which can be disastrous in countries affected by earthquakes. But now, “if you build a structure according to these specifications, it will safe, durable and long-lasting.”
After retirement, Hansen plans to move to Mongolia where he will teach concrete and his wife, English. But he’s going out with a bang, holding a series of themed retirement parties that will double as fundraisers for the endowment, complete with commemorative engraved glasses for the cause.
Those who wish to donate to the endowment may contact the SDSM&T Foundation at (605) 394-2436 or foundation@sdsmt.edu.